Well, another week seems to have flown by (almost literally), with an excellent trip to Prague with my parents at the weekend.  The city is even more stunning than I recall from my previous trip (playing a gig with The Hamiltons at the pinicle of our career in January 2000). 

Our hotel (the K&K Fenix) was very comfortable but it transpired it was rather colourfully located next to ‘Darlings Cabaret’ (www.kabaret.cz).  I’m pleased to report that you can still buy a beer for less that £1 per pint, and mighty fine beer it is too.  I also took the opportunity to start my Christmas shopping – it’s always best to pick things up as you see then rather than have a last minute panic.

literally.  We had a company night out Walthamstow dog track on Tuesday (www.wsgreyhound.co.uk).  We ran a ‘fantasy greyhound league’ during the evening to raise a bit of cash for the charity Childline which kept one of the partners of Harmonic quiet for the evening trying to work out the scores. 

My random choice of dogs didn’t win the fantasy league, but after a mild losing streak on the night I recovered and broke even after a cunning ‘forecast combination’ bet on the last race.  You pick 3 dogs and get a payout for if any two of them finishe 1st and 2nd in any order.

Top tip if you should ever find yourslef eating at Walthamstow dogs in the ‘posh’ track side restaurant… don’t order a starter.  The portions are huge, even by my standards.

and that’s official (I fell asleep whislt watching the first England World Cup match as an example) but I don’t fancy our chances of going all the way after watching the game against Sweden this evening. 

Still, it was a good opportunity to do a bit of ironing and a bit of web surfing.  I was looking for flights to Australia for a trip later in the year to see Emma in Sydney and my sister and Allan in Perth, but someone seems to have invited a comedian to come up with the pricing…. time to put my value hunting hat on me thinks.

 Aprt from that, I’m getting ready for a trip to Prague at the weekend with my parents… more on that next week (well, I’ve put the washing in the machine).  My back garden now looks like a back garden again rather than a building site (having cunningly moved everything from the back garden to the front garden, awaiting a man with a van and a hazy understanding of income tax to come and take it to the tip) and my cherry tree is should be yielding fruit in the next couple of weeks. 

 No news on the house front (well, unless you didn’t know I’m hoping to move to Islington and have had an offer accepted on a house).  My investigations suggest that loft conversions that do not alter the rooflifne do not require planning permission, but they most certainly do require building regulation consent (which so far seems to be suspiciously absent).